


The Sound the Sea Makes

by narcolepticbadger



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: (a tame 'some' but still), Bush gets some, Cotard is an unrepentant tease, M/M, Pre-Slash, Slash, and so am i
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcolepticbadger/pseuds/narcolepticbadger
Summary: Mission discharged, Côtard departs the Hotspur, but not before he and Bush exchange a few parting gifts.





	The Sound the Sea Makes

**Author's Note:**

> Companion to [Constante](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4884382), but can be read as a standalone.
> 
> This fic has been sitting, inches from completion, in my files for almost two years - it's time to let it go, even if I'm not entirely happy with it.

They trawl back into sight of Portsmouth, days late from storms, and the ship is filled to the sails with a sense of impatience, of expectant homecoming - and, for Côtard, of things ending and ways parting and a bittersweetness under his tongue that cannot be swallowed.

He will not miss the confines of the ship, he thinks, nor the little bells that ring through all hours of the night and move men over his head, past his door, rumbling all the while like bees. And yet there is a reluctance in him, one that builds slowly, as clouds turn to thunderheads over the horizon and back again, as if the sea has found its way deep enough into his blood that he will feel its absence, he will _miss_ it, when he departs, for the last time, to shore.

The rain makes him fractious, sees him packing and unpacking what few possessions he brought as they are delayed yet again, and when the cabin proves too small - in every direction - to pace, Côtard resorts to tapping its wooden beams in counterpoint to the sounds of the storm and waits for something (namely, some _one_ ) to provide him with better distraction.

Bush, when the end of his watch similarly forces him below deck, fixes him with a look across their narrow space, once proposes a game of cards that Côtard plays and loses moodily, but otherwise says nothing, or what may as well be nothing for all it tells Côtard of his thoughts.

(And, still, it is not the sea, nor the turns through the passageways of the _Hotspur_ that he has come to know, but certain… _company_ that weighs so in his chest, denoting everything he might be rather sorrier to leave behind.)

He has found amusement - and more, those slipperier things tamped down, kept still like his wounded arm so he feels less of its ache - in teasing those looks (and once, a smile) out of Bush, has learned the man’s patterns of sleep and curvatures of voice and quiet routines about the berth, and for all they contort each other’s languages, each other’s very names when they bother to use them, Côtard feels himself less the stranger, less _solitaire_ , when he’s with Bush.

They are both accustomed to the movements of service and war, the shifting roles and regions and regiments they find themselves in, and yet Côtard cannot make this leave-taking like the others that came before, cannot bear the thought of only a cursory nod between them as he finds his legs on the cobblestones of Portsmouth again, when there was something of fate, of intractable _destin_ (though he laughs at himself for believing it), in their meeting.

That they should have served and slept and nearly died side-by-side for the time that they did, two people who might have been enemies on any other day - such a thing Côtard could not let pass unmarked.

The bells sound again, no different even within sight of land, and set the men pounding overhead, voices rising. He expects Bush through the door directly; the man is as predictable, regimented in his movements about the ship, as each clanging call to watch.

It wouldn’t do to be caught standing about so stupidly, as if he were purposefully awaiting Bush’s tread over the threshold (as if he kept such careful keeping of the lieutenant’s schedule as to anticipate his arrival down to the minute), and so Côtard endeavors to busy his hands once more, tugging at and tightening the fastenings of his pack until he is no longer certain he will be able to work them loose later without the help of a knifepoint.

His fingers catch on the worn leather of a book, and he stills, remembering that he had thought to leave it behind, a parting gift of sorts (a remembrance) for his bedfellow. Côtard himself had received _Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais_ from his brother upon his departure from the continent, and though the book had been given in jest he had read it all but sideways on the long nights between Portsmouth and Brest and back.

And his understanding, such as it is, of the ways of Englishmen had been sufficiently illuminated in the process, though whether due credit should be paid to the likes of Voltaire or to Bush is a matter not so easily settled.

Bush is not a man for sentiment, and such a gift would hold nothing practical for him. Côtard is not sure the man _reads_ , to begin with, and, if he does, it seems too much to believe Bush would carry the book with him beyond their parting, for the man seemed to retain no personal effects at all, his side of the berth always kept scrupulously bare, and would therefore deem any token from a half-stranger even more alien a possession.

It is a foolish notion altogether, and yet Côtard feels it governed by a certain law of just returns, for Bush has given him several _souvenirs_ of his own: his pistol in the midst of war, which Côtard fears had been lost somewhere in the scramble of the battlefield (a heavy forfeiture indeed for any fighting man); and, perhaps less prudently, a steady subject to contemplate, to overturn so thoroughly in his mind as to commit all contours to memory, when boredom may have otherwise driven him to other, ignobler pastimes.

To leave the book in some corner of the berth, without ceremony, for Bush to discover one unexpected afternoon was a thought that satisfied Côtard’s genuine gratitude _and_ his mischievous hindbrain, as the gift was sure to pique even Bush’s mild temper in its inscrutability to him, both in language and in intent, ensuring that Côtard may continue to bedevil the lieutenant well beyond their parting.

And so it is decided, _Lettres philosophiques_ tucked into a thin stack of shirts for later unearthing, and Côtard cannot but wonder whether Bush will secure the linguistic talents of his friend the _capitaine_ in translating the pages or venture to parse the meaning of the book himself, this final missive kept for his eyes and hands alone.

(He rather likes the prospect of Bush discreetly tonguing out the sounds of French in his rooms, even with such unromantic accents as to mangle each phrase he comes across.)

With that diversion concluded, Côtard is forced to recognize that Bush is late, his familiar step worse than absent in a complete break with routine. The delay makes Côtard scowl, and he has half a mind to march the decks above to find the lieutenant himself, though what excuse he should give for his impatience escapes him in the moment.

How many times has he now called upon Bush to explain the workings of the ship to him, to demand an accounting for every bell and pitching of the boards that unbalanced him, each time obliged by a terse (but true) answer that he has at last found himself lacking a suitable point of inquiry?

His hand is at the door, regardless, when it suddenly opens into him, cracking into his knuckles, and Bush’s face peers around the frame curiously at the sound, the sharp click of his tongue expressing more reproval than apology.

“Ah, forgive me,” he says diplomatically, and Côtard twists aside with a grumble to allow him passage, narrow enough that more than their elbows brush. “On your way, then, Major?”

“ _Oui._ I have done with this little room and your ringing bells - I shall not be sorry, I think, to go.”

Bush offers his hand - of course he does - and there is less an air of resignation, of mere duty, in it than Côtard might expect, and it is that suggestion of something remaining to be said that has him shaking his head dispiritedly (half-feigned, and he knows Bush reads the playfulness in his glance well enough) at the gesture.

“ _Mais non,_  Mister Bush - we fought together. Does that not make us friends?”

“As you say, Major,” Bush responds rather flatly, and Côtard determines to make him pay for every moment of impassivity between them.

“And so we must part as such. None of this cold English shaking of the hands.”  

For the first time, Bush’s effortless calm falters, and he blinks, faster now, the clear blue of his eyes troubled as he considers (perhaps _fears_ , Côtard thinks with a dangerous, reckless thrill of victory) what the alternative might be.

Côtard steps forward, now so near he must be careful not to tread on the other man’s feet, and rests one hand on the dip between Bush’s neck and shoulder, pressing lightly to steady them both. “Allow me.”

He bends his head, the practiced movement of a man used to stooping through every doorway aboard this infernal vessel, to reach Bush’s cheek and says, low, as if passing a secret, “ _Un ici,_ ” and presses his lips there.

He lingers, testing both of their restraint, but Bush continues to stare a straight line into Côtard’s collarbone, and so Côtard aims the second kiss nearer to his mouth, both of them hotly aware that Bush need only turn his head a fraction - but he does not, and Côtard breaks the kiss if only to properly see the look on Bush’s face.  

“... _et un ici_ ,” he finishes, letting his gaze settle atop the other man’s. Bush’s eyes are remarkably clear - not placid, no, there is something of a roughness, a sea slow-stirring to unrest - and Côtard refuses the urge to wet his lips, imagining the taste of salt laying smooth there from where his ritual had joined them.

He might have pondered on how to extricate himself from their quarters after such an intimate (to the English) display, but it is Bush who breaks the silence, still fearsomely composed.

“And… here?” the man questions with perfect gravity, and captures Côtard’s mouth, unresisting, against his own in answer.

(Bush has, it appears, always understood a great deal more than his countenance betrays.)

Bush’s lips are sure, a bracing point of contact where all his other touches are fleeting, exploratory, and Côtard lets himself be distracted by the rising of his long-held meditations on those hands and how they touched all things carefully, surprising in so strong-built a man, to have such softness under skin lined by ropes and the coarse, cutting sea air.

Soft, but not so mindful that Bush doesn’t press against the yet half-raw wound to Côtard’s arm in his tactile study, though the sharp-skipped breath that passes between them serves only to heighten their mutual want. Côtard’s fingers fist low in Bush’s coat, then under, pausing (playing) against a layer of bare muscle until Bush sighs his assent.

“Ah, you see, we will make a Frenchman of you yet,” Côtard promises, earning a gentle bite to the slope of his shoulder as they set their bodies to a new rhythm.

...

Later, as Côtard steps from sea to shore, he does not turn back to see which men stand witness to this final passage, his _dénouement_ from naval life - he is swaying like a devil anyway, and would prefer not to be seen so ridiculous by those more accustomed to the transition.

He does not look back, for all his instincts tell him that Portsmouth is not so large, nor a Frenchman so inconspicuous in such pallid company, that a man with any skill in navigation should not be able to find one within the other if he sought as much.

And Bush, who fashioned so much of himself after the sea he drew his living from, whose compass bearings were all but engraved to his heart, would find Côtard, surely, the marks they had left on each other more easily tracked than any far-flung horizon. 

 

_..._

_he makes the sound, the sound the sea makes_  
( _knee-deep in the north sea_ )  
  
\--modified lyrics from “Dissolve Me” by Alt-J


End file.
